Day one on Pacific time: the border, Alberta, your calendar and the dark school run

We covered the basics in October: the March 8 change was the last one, and BC’s new zone is called Pacific time, abbreviated PCT, seven hours behind UTC. The Province’s page says most people have nothing to do. True, as far as the clock on the wall goes. But a few things did change this morning, because everyone around us kept changing theirs.

The Aldergrove border opens an hour later

Washington fell back to UTC-8 at 2 am. The Canada Border Services Agency decided it would rather keep the Lynden–Aldergrove crossing’s hours lined up with the American side than with ours, so from today until March 14, 2027 the crossing at 264 Street runs 9 am to 1 am on our clocks instead of 8 am to midnight. CBSA’s statement, reported by the Langley Advance Times, says the same shift applies to eight other part-time BC crossings. The 24-hour ones, Peace Arch and Sumas–Huntingdon, don’t change. All four crossings are on our US border crossings page.

The other way round: when you cross into Washington, set your watch back an hour. A 10 am appointment in Bellingham is 11 am in Langley until mid-March.

Alberta went the other way

The Province’s March announcement said Pacific time would match Alberta from November to March. That is no longer true, because Alberta made its own change on November 1: it adopted “Alberta Time” (ABT, UTC-6), its old summer time, year-round. So Alberta is now an hour ahead of us all year, not just in summer. Calgary relatives are now an hour ahead when you call, and a 7 pm puck drop in Edmonton is a 6 pm start on our clock.

Yukon has been on UTC-7 year-round since 2020, so it matches us. Toronto and Ottawa are two hours ahead of Langley this winter rather than three, which makes 9 am Eastern meetings a 7 am start here instead of 6 am. The southeast corner of BC around Cranbrook and Fernie stays on Alberta’s clock, so it’s an hour ahead of us too.

Your phone is probably fine. Your calendar might not be.

The time-zone data that phones and computers use (the IANA database, release 2026b from April) already knows BC moved to permanent UTC-7. One oddity: that database labels BC’s new offset “MST” from November 1, so a device may call our time Mountain Standard Time for a while. It’s the right time with a confusing name.

The Township of Langley’s notice is the one worth reading. It has been updating its systems with its software vendors, but it warns that if you used “Add to Calendar” when you registered for a recreation program, the entry in your phone’s calendar may have shifted by an hour, depending on your calendar app. Program times have not changed: a Sunday 10 am class is still at 10 am. Check the PDF confirmation you got when you registered, fix or re-add the calendar entry, and make sure your device and calendar are set to Pacific time. If a Township page or service shows the wrong time after today, report it at tol.ca/help.

The same logic applies to anything scheduled across the border or with Alberta: recurring video calls and flight times are the ones to double-check this week.

The mornings

The trade-off is the one everyone argued about in March. Sunset in early November is a little before 6 pm instead of a little before 5. In exchange, sunrise slides from about 8 am now to about 9 am in late December. A Fraser Health doctor wrote to the Langley Advance Times last week about that, pointing to ICBC figures of 29 pedestrian crashes in the Lower Mainland between 6 and 9 am in November 2025 alone, and asking people to wear something reflective, use lit routes and crosswalks, and carry a light. If a child in your house walks to school in the dark from now until February, that’s the practical change from today.

Who’s still not thrilled

The Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce said in March that it had long supported ending the clock change but wanted BC to move in step with Washington, Oregon and California, citing shipping schedules and the film industry’s Hollywood connections. The Province’s answer at the time was that those states are all working on similar laws. For now, the Chamber’s mismatch is real: four months a year, Langley and Lynden are on different clocks.